Catrina makes her usual stop at the Burdines, the gas/bait/ice store (and a restaurant upstairs). The attendant tells us a number of boats have been getting nice fish at the 7 Mile Bridge. Off we head for the Bridge.
We decide to try the Atlantic side since we were unable to plant an anchor on the Gulf side. We drop Anchor but are not sure it is firmly planted and decide to move to another place. That’s when the fun starts. The bridge is about 50 feet off and we are up wind. Debbie cannot pull the line up. It goes under the boat. About that time if you came by you would see lots of bodies hanging over the side looking for the anchor line.
We found the line running down the port pontoon to the port motor and then under the port side and straight away from the boat. Tom moves the boat in all sorts of directions trying to free the line. Alice and Debbie try to grab the line from the side and loose one of our two hooks. Stupid move. Glen and Lynn pull up the port motor and there the line is over the shaft of the port motor. Unfortunately, there is no slack in the line.
Tom joins Debbie up front. We put a bumper on the end of the line and detach it from the anchor box. If we have to throw it overboard, we can retrieve the anchor. Debbie lets out line from the Anchor Box to make a slack line and Tom quickly lifts the line off the motor shaft. We are able to pull in the anchor just before we run into the bridge . Catrina quickly heads out into the Atlantic. It only took six adults one hour to free the line and it exhausted all of us! We hope that will be our greatest adventure of the trip!
To cool down we headed for Sombrero Reef for a swim. All the fish that were there yesterday are still there but the water is cooler and the group does not stay in as long this time. However, Alice saw a new creature--an eel!
Glen and Carol are friends of Tom's when he lived in Southern Indiana. Their families used to sail to the Bahamas over spring break.
Lynn Ray is their son and Alice is his happy wife.
After lunch we headed north along the Atlantic Coast to Flounder Hole - maybe we would be lucky!
No flounders but we had lots of interest from another species!
We moved to another spot with about the same amount of success. This time, however, the anchor gave us a difficult time coming off the bottom. This must be a really good anchor.
Back home at U-6, Alice prepared Chili with or without spagetti noodles and crackers. It was delicious and we thank Carol for putting these three meals together.
When you go over to MCM, you meet the nicest people standing in line for the showers! Debbie is getting much better at driving Tiggerl. Also we went before it was pitch dark! Sailing is a little like camping. When it gets dark, it is bedtime. However, when it gets light . . . .
